


who nursey says is dead

by demonicweirdo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Blood and Gore, Child Abuse, Creepy Fluff, First Kiss, Fluff, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Holding Hands, M/M, Mystery, Physical Abuse, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5101097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonicweirdo/pseuds/demonicweirdo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m fine,” Stiles mutters, gritting his teeth through the searing pain. The hand pressed to his neck comes away drenched in blood. “Maybe not. I’m going to die. I’m going to die here, in this shitty house, on <em>Halloween</em>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	who nursey says is dead

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back!  
> I never actually left, but I did get a major case of writer's block. I may be rusty, so sorry :/  
> This is your classic halloween stuck-in-a-haunted-house fic. I tried my hand at horror - not sure if it's my thing to be honest. A few things: This is sort-of canon-divergent. Derek is still the Alpha, because we all love him that way, and Isaac stayed in Beacon Hills. Stiles and Scott are home from uni (I don't know when the proper breaks are, sorry)  
> I rushed through this because I just got the idea a few days ago and I wanted it out by Halloween. I missed the deadline, but I think it' still worth sharing. I went through scary af playlists to write this so I hope you enjoy it!

The house, like all houses, seemed harmless. The purpose of the past tense is to say that it is, decidedly, _not_ harmless.

Stiles isn’t psychic. He couldn’t have known. But here he is, with three angry werewolves glaring at him, their faces lit up by the screen on his phone. Which was about to run out of battery.

“Look at it this way,” he starts. “We all work better under pressure. In this case, the pressure is trying not to die, but when isn’t it?”

Scott huffs. “It’s _Halloween_ , Stiles. And you thought it would be a great idea to investigate the Murder House?”

“Okay, first of all, we are not calling it that, that is a lame name, Scott. And second, I didn’t force anyone to do anything! I just _suggested_ -”

“And whined,” Isaac adds. “And begged. It was pretty pathetic.”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Stiles snaps, slightly on edge from the homicidal angry smolder that Derek was giving him.

“No, but you should have listened to it before we got locked inside.”

Stiles's screen darkens, before switching off. The darkness was overwhelming for a few moments, the musty old air making him shiver. “What do we do now?”

“You’re the one with the genius ideas,” Derek mutters. Thankfully, his eyes glow a steady red, and Scott and Isaac follow suit with their own yellow glows.

“Seriously, bitch at me later,” Stiles replies, squinting at the staircase across the room. “If there is a later. I mean, there have been no reported survivors since the first murders back in the 1920s.” He runs a hand along the wall and it comes back dusty. “But there’s been reports of… screams at around midnight, followed by silence.”

“So, we have three hours until certain and horrible death?” Isaac says. His voice isn’t scared, or even surprised. When it came to Beacon Hills, you should always expect the worst to happen.

Stiles nods. He feels exposed, acutely aware that he was the only human in the house, unable to see in the dark or defend himself save for the pepper spray in his pocket.

“What do you suppose we do?” Derek grumbles. “Just wait it out? Sit around playing spin the bottle?”

Stiles claps him on the shoulder, misses, and tries again. “Maybe later, big boy.”

“We should find whatever is killing people,” Scott suggests.

“That’s pretty self-destructive,” Isaac points out.

“Well, it’s what we came to do, right? We may as well kill it before it kills us.”

Stiles peers at the dark outline of his best friend. “I don’t know. Hiding sounds fun. Just… you know, throwing it out there.”

“We find the ghost,” Derek announces, his voice hard and uncompromising.

Stiles groans and runs a hand down his face. “Great. You’re all idiots.”

“We should split up,” Derek continues.

Stiles allows himself to be silent for a beat, just to make sure Derek isn’t going to say, “ _just kidding!_ ” and slap his knee. He doesn’t.

“I vote against that.”

Derek sighs. “Of course you do.”

Stiles looks around at the others, or rather, as much as he can make out of them. “Have any of you guys watched a horror movie? Ever?”

“He has a point,” Scott reluctantly says. “Divided we fall?”

“We’re werewolves, Scott. Apart from… this one,” Derek replies, waving a hand at Stiles. “I’m still not sure what he is. But we can handle a ghost.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at Derek. “Did you know ghosts existed?”

Derek ignores him. “Isaac, you and Scott take the basement. Stiles and I will take the first and second floors.”

Stiles raises his hand. “Um, excuse me? Do I get a say in this? I want to go with Scott. He seems less inclined to claw my heart out as soon as I turn my back.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Scott mutters.

“You’re coming with me,” Derek growls. “You’re only human; you have a better chance of survival with an alpha.”

“Wow,” Stiles murmurs. “Way to water your ego-”

He’s interrupted by a breeze sweeping through, caressing his neck like the cool touch of sweaty fingers. He shudders, and the touch trails down his neck, making him yelp and jerk into Isaac.

“ _Jesus Christ,_ ” he spits out. “Let’s go. Right now.”

There’s no more argument. Derek grabs his arm and pulls him to his side (which doesn’t give Stiles a little thrill to cut through the terror), and Scott and Isaac walk off, presumably to find the basement. Stiles is not envious of their mission.

After a few steps, Stiles realizes a couple of things:

a)He can’t see,

b)which makes him sort of useless in this scenario

c)Derek hasn’t let go of his arm, and his grip is tighter than it usually is.

“What do your werewolf senses tell you?”

Derek is silent for a moment, and Stiles takes the moment to trip on something that is either a table leg or a human skull.

“There’s a rot under the floor. A stench in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Possibly a dead body.”

“A raccoon?” Stiles offers hopefully.

Derek shakes his head. “A human. Maybe more than one.” Stiles feels the shudder go through his body. “There’s a lot of blood and pain in here.”

Stiles swallows down on a whimper. The fact the Derek, an alpha werewolf comfortably with maiming and death (or rather, accustomed to it) is disgusted by what he smells, is not a good sign.

“You know,” he starts, his voice strangled slightly with fear, “I might beat you to killing me for getting us into this situation.”

Derek pulls Stiles to his side before he walks into a chair. “Be quiet,” he whispers, his breath tickling Stiles's ear and making him jerk back in fright. “I can feel something.” The length of him against Stiles’ body is a comforting warmth, and he’s lucky he can attribute the jump in his heartbeat to fear.

 

“Are you getting bad vibes?” Stiles shoots back quietly. “Is something messing with your werewolf zen?”

“If you don’t stop talking, I will leave you alone in the dark.”

Stiles shuts up. His eyes have adjusted enough to the dark that he can make out the vague shapes of a fireplace, and a broken, antique sofa, leaning to one side and ripped up.

He breaks away from Derek’s grip immediately, going for the mantelpiece. Before Derek can reach for him, he snatches something up from it, his fingers wrapping around the cold surface. When he turns it around in his hands, he feels something sticky on the side and almost drops it in disgust.

Derek reestablishes his grip on Stiles's wrist, his fingers stronger than before, and starts tugging him away.

“Dude,” Stiles whispers harshly, “give me a second. I found something.”

“ _Stiles_.” Derek’s voice is panicked and growly, and _not next to him._

Stiles shrieks and struggles more, but the grip on his wrist is unyielding. He tries kicking out with his feet blindly, but they connect with nothing but the stagnant air. “Derek,” he says, his voice shaky with terror. He stumbles over something, and then another thing, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that he’s being dragged up the stairs. “Now would be a good time for one of your heroics that you’re so fond of. _Derek!_ ”

Red eyes cut through the darkness, but they’re too far away, and Stiles is already halfway up the stairs.

He squeezes the thing in his hand, and suddenly the world is white, burning his eyes and making him yelp. He jerks the light away from his eyes and it lands on whatever is dragging him up.

For a moment, he can’t trust his eyes to be giving him an accurate vision of the present, because the thing that is holding his wrist captive, with long, pale, narrow fingers and a snarling mouth, is himself.

“ _Holy shit,_ ” he yells, jerking back, and this time the thing lets him go. The torchlight slides away from it as Stiles loses his footing. There’s a sick moment of surprise as he falls, his arms flailing about as his stomach flips and his heart speeds up.

But he collides with something warm and real, and Derek huffs a breath of surprise as he catches Stiles, his fingers curling around Stiles's shoulders as he uprights him.

Derek spins Stiles around, his hands wandering down his arms and torso. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Stiles takes a deep breath and lets himself shudder, shoving Derek’s hands off him and turning the torch back to the top of the stairs, which was empty. “Did you see it?” he asks, his words bursting out of him and tumbling over each other frantically.

“No,” Derek says, his voice losing the concern for Stiles and going back to his usual gruff tone. “You were being dragged away by nothing.”

Stiles went to scoff but what comes out is some sort of choked-out laugh. “Nothing? What the actual fuck, Derek? It was me!”

Derek doesn’t answer, probably waiting for Stiles to calm down, and he does. He takes a deep, stabilizing breath, and taps his fingers against his leg to stop them shaking, his other hand holding the torch close to Derek’s face so he can see him. “It was me. Or it was wearing my face. Except it was strong, and…” He swallows around the lump of fear in his throat. “It looked so _hateful_.”

There’s another moment of silence.

“Whatever we have to kill, it’s upstairs,” Derek says finally. His gaze meets Stiles, and Stiles finds comfort in the steady familiarity of it. They were lighter in the dark, with the torchlight illuminating them.

Stiles nods and looks back to the top. The light casts shadows all around them, and Stiles can’t clamp down on his paranoia that something could spring from them at any time.

“It’s taking the shape of what we fear the most,” he says, his voice quiet. Those eyes, that hate...he wasn’t talking of fearing himself. He recognized that look. He was well aware of his darkest fear.

When he looks back at Derek, there’s finally a semblance of fear on his face, and Stiles looks away. He isn’t sure how keen he is to face Derek’s deepest fear.

Neither of them seem eager to lead the way, so they both walk up the stairs, side-by-side. With the torch, Stiles doesn’t need Derek’s guidance, but he finds himself craving his warm hand on his arm again, something solid to remind him that he’s not alone.

Because for all he knows, in all that confusion, the _thing_ could’ve taken Derek, and the person walking next to him as they come to the second floor… Stiles tries not to think about it.

The second floor is split by the staircase into two hallways. From the blueprints that Stiles examined from the station, the whole second floor is full of bedrooms and bathrooms, and not much else.

“Where is the dead body you were smelling?” Stiles whispers, his grip painful on the torch. He knows what the sticky substance is, because he can smell it, and Derek is politely not mentioning the fact that he’s holding a bloody torch.

Derek jerks his head to the right, and the torchlight lights up the hallway. For a brief, heart-thudding moment, Stiles thinks he sees someone at the end. In his shock, the light moves slightly, and when he focuses it on that spot again, there’s nothing there.

They walk down the hallway, the yellowed, peeling, floral wallpaper giving off a sinister vibe.

Derek’s hand closes over Stiles's torch hand. “You’re shaking,” he says gently.

“Yeah, you try to pretend you’re not freaked out, you dick,” Stiles snipes back, but he doesn’t pull away from the touch.

Derek stops, making Stiles stop, and looks at him, his eyes earnest in a way that Stiles has never seen before. “I am. Freaked out.” He looks around. “No matter how many ghosts I see, I’m always freaked out.”

Stiles meets his eyes this time, and he knows that Derek is talking about another house, full of more ghosts and death and pain than the one they were in right now.

There’s a scraping noise behind them, and the moment is broken when they both whirl around to see nothing, just the hallway extending to the end.

Derek grabs Stiles's arm again. “Calm down,” he orders gruffly. “We’ve faced worse.”

Derek opens a door to their right with a careful hand, and Stiles can see the tips of his claws extended. He has the torchlight ready, and the first thing it lands on is a person.

Just standing there.

It’s a young girl, younger than Stiles, probably high school aged. She’s wearing jeans in a style that Stiles doesn’t recognize. Her hair is hanging down her face, which is pale and drawn into a small smile that seems more sinister than the snarl that Stiles had encountered on his own face.

He doesn’t recognize the girl, but he feels Derek tense behind him. Stiles takes a step to the side, cautiously, and the girl’s eyes follow him. There’s a distinctive mole under her eye, which makes Stiles focus on how she isn’t blinking.

“Who are you?” Stiles asks. Maybe they weren’t the only ones shut inside. They could help her get out. Saving lives was a personal hobby of Stiles, after taking so many.

“Stiles,” Derek breathes out. It’s a warning, a caution.

Stiles doesn’t spare him a glance. The girl’s smile disappears.

“Who are you?” Stiles asks again. “We can help you, we can get you out of here.”

The girl turns her head to Derek, slowly. “Derek,” she says, her voice stating a fact. “It was you.”

Stiles glances at Derek and notices how pale he is, how his eyes are transfixed on the girl. “Paige.”

Paige’s smile comes back, wider than before, and it looks predatory. “It was you, Derek. It was your fault.”

Stiles knows what she’s talking about, he heard the story. “Derek, she’s not real.”

Derek doesn’t listen, and Paige doesn’t look at him. He’s invisible, the show is theirs.

Paige takes a step forward and Derek lets her. “You know that, right? _You_ killed me.” Her voice was soft and sad.

Stiles bounced on the balls of his feet briefly, trying to figure out what to do. Derek wasn’t listening to him, he looked to be under some sort of spell. His eyes were blank and unresponsive to everything but Paige.

Stiles steps in front of Derek, blocking his sight from her. “Derek,” he says firmly, his hands on Derek’s shoulders. He shakes them. “Look at me.”

Derek blinks, and he finally meets Stiles's eyes. “Stiles?” His voice is small, and he sounds confused.

Stiles nods. “I… Is she still behind me?”

Derek shoves him out the way, and Paige is still there. Her face is contorted in anger, and hatred.

“You killed me,” she repeats savagely. “I was left here to die!”

“Who are you?” Stiles asks again. “What do you want?”

Paige - the thing - turns to him and sneers. “ _She comes in through the window ‘cause the door is not allowed_ ,” she snarls in a broken rhythm. “ _Her face is like a moonbeam and her hair is like a cloud_.”

It rushes at Stiles and dives for his neck. He feels the cool, slimy mouth just before something sharp digs into his throat, and he scrabbles at the body pressing against his. It’s tossed from him by a red-eyed Derek, in full shift, and there’s a cackle as it stomps out the door. Derek makes an aborted move to follow it, but Stiles cries out at the air hitting his neck and the exposed wound. There’s a Derek with a human face and gentle hands, straightening Stiles up and examining his neck.

“I’m fine,” Stiles mutters, gritting his teeth through the searing pain. The hand pressed to his neck comes away drenched in blood. “Maybe not. I’m going to die. I’m going to die here, in this shitty haunted house, on _Halloween_.”

“You’re not going to die,” Derek growls. His hands are gentle as they smooth down Stiles's jacket, but Stiles notices the slight tremor that goes through them through the haze of pain. He captures Derek’s hand with his own and Derek looks up at him.

“Dude. Seriously, it’s always the hot ones who die first,” he jokes.

Derek’s expression softens slightly. “It’s not deep. You’re overreacting.”

Stiles gives him a pained smile, and they stare at each other for a while. There was no nervous tension, like the knot of nerves in Stiles's stomach when he stared too long at those eyes. They both took comfort in the fact that they were both there, in a strange haunted house, together.

Stiles is sure that he would’ve looked at _Isaac_ the same way in these circumstances.

“Stiles…” Derek trails off and looks down, at their hands. There’s a pause as he searches for the words. “Don’t die.”

“Hey,” Stiles says softly, mainly because it hurts less to whisper. “I’m going to ignore the complete lack of faith in my preservation skills and remind you that I’ve survived a lot worse than this.”

Derek looks at him for a second longer, before taking his hands out of Stiles's and grabbing him by the shoulder, supporting him as they left the room. Stiles shakes him off, because he didn’t get his leg chewed off, he can walk fine.

“What do we do now?” Derek asks, a question that still got Stiles excited when it was directed at him. Sometime in the last few years, Derek started trusting him enough to ask for his opinion, his guidance. Of course, if they ever get out the the Murder House alive, that will probably change.

Stiles glances around, his torchlight flickering. It lands on a string from the roof, and Stiles hates himself for the words that come out of his mouth next. “The attic.”

Derek sighs, and they both walk forward. Stiles grabs Derek’s arm and misses, getting his hand instead. He half-expects Derek to shove him away, but fingers entwine hesitantly with his own, and he is holding hands with Derek Hale.

“ _Derek…_ ”

They both freeze, and look behind them. No one is there.

“ _Stiles… get out._ ”

The voice is a harsh whisper, and although Stiles's permanent state of being is constant fear and anxiety, he isn’t scared. Because he recognizes that voice.

“Allison?”

Derek shakes his head. “It’s not her. It’s playing tricks again.”

There’s a light breeze, warm and refreshing, and it ruffles Stiles's hair. “ _You have to get out_ ,” Allison’s disembodied voice stresses. She sounds close, like if Stiles were to turn his head they’d be nose-to-nose, but when he does, nothing is there but a creepy portrait of a long dead monk on the wall.

“Don’t talk to it,” Derek orders, his eyes flashing red as he spins around, trying to find the source of the voice.

Stiles doesn’t listen. “Where are you?”

There’s another warm breeze next to Stiles's ear. “ _Look for the doll._ ” Her voice is clearer that time, and so agonizingly familiar that it hurts. Stiles never thought he would hear her voice again, not after the Oni. She still sounds young. Seventeen.

The warm breeze leaves, and her with it. It leaves Stiles and Derek shaken up, both looking at the door to the attic apprehensively.

"It could have been her," Stiles says.

"It wasn't," Derek replies shortly. "She's gone."

"But it  _could've been_. Dude, I didn't even know ghosts existed until now. She could be protecting us."

Derek gives Stiles a scowl that conveys just how stupid he thinks Stiles is being. "It was the ghost, Stiles. Another trick."

Stiles returns the scowl with a narrowing of his eyes. "Why would the ghost help us, Derek?"

Derek throws him an annoyed look. “Let's just get this over with.”

“What? No, _stay behind Stiles, you’ll only be in the way_?”

“You’ll get murdered on your own, and I’m not a fan of funerals,” Derek replies dryly. He reaches up and pulls the string. Stairs descend smoothly, and a dust cloud follows, making Stiles cough.

“After you,” he tells Derek, his voice strained from the coughing. He takes his hand off his neck but the wound hasn’t stopped bleeding. He supposes it doesn’t matter, since whatever’s in the attic is going to kill him before he can slip on the blood.

Derek strides up the steps confidently, and Stiles can see his claws extend, knowing that Derek was shifting in preparation of the danger.

“Why can’t it be unicorns,” he mutters. “Or leprechauns. I think we could all do with a bit of Irish cheer.” He follows Derek, ignoring the hard and loud pounding of his heart.

They scan the attic warily.

There are no bodies hanging from the rafters.

There are no rocking chairs.

There’s a girl sitting on the floor, her back to them, brushing the hair of her doll and singing softly. She doesn’t notice them.

Stiles tilts his head towards Derek and mumbles, “She has a doll.”

Derek doesn’t answer.

They stand there for a moment longer.

The girl turns to face them, dropping the doll on the floor. Stiles flinches when he sees her face; it’s broken stitches. Someone, once, had sewed her eyes and mouth shut, and Stiles could make out the harsh red marks of the stitching, and the black thread that still remained after it had been cut.

There’s a faint wail, but the girl doesn’t open her mouth. She just stares at them solemnly, not even breathing.

The torch flickers, and when it stabilizes again, the girl is standing up. Stiles takes a step back, and Derek’s eyes flash.

The torch flickers again, drowning them in a half moment of shadow before the harsh white light lands on the girl’s face, a metre from Stiles and twisted in a large grin.

Stiles shrieks and throws the torch; a moment before impact with the girl’s head, it drops to the ground heavily.

She’s no more than five, Stiles realizes.

“ _For when the sun has gone to sleep_ ,” she sings sweetly, staring at Derek, in the same stilted rhythm that the creature sang before, “ _and all the world’s in bed, then someone comes to see us here, whom Nursey says is dead_.”

There’s a beat of silence. She doesn’t break eye contact.

“Okay,” Stiles says.

The girl doesn’t even look at him.

“Hey, can we have your doll?” Derek elbows him, and he elbows back. “What? I don’t want to steal from a little girl.”

“Give me a hug, Stiles,” the girl tells him. Her voice is sweet and cold, and it chills Stiles. “Give me a hug before you go. Please, little bug. Give your mother a hug before you go.”

Stiles lets out a shaky breath, a feeling of complete _wrongness_ that those words should come out of that mouth, with that voice.

“Stop it,” he orders, his voice shaking with emotion. He doesn’t want to remember that, not right now.

“I won’t hurt you again. I could never hurt you, Stiles. I didn’t mean to, it was an accident.”

“Stiles.” Derek doesn’t look away from her. “What is she saying?”

Stiles shakes his head, and he can feel his tears well up, but he keeps them at bay. “Shut up,” he repeats.

The girl tilts her head at him. There’s another wail, this time closer, this time crawling over Stiles’s skin.

“Help me,” the girl says. “Mommy won’t let me sleep.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles breathes.

The girl’s face crumples. “ _She won’t let me sleep._ ”

Stiles would normally _nope_ this situation and bail, maybe go find Isaac and Scott and see if they can hold their own against the dark forces of the house. Derek was better with kids, anyway.

“I could knock her out,” Derek murmurs from the corner of his mouth. “She’d sleep then.”

Maybe he wasn’t.

Stiles crouches down, ignoring the searing pain in his neck, and gives the girl a wide, terrified smile that’s meant to be placating, and probably misses by a mile. “What’s your name?”

“Sarah.”

Stiles nods. “Okay. Sarah. You have to promise me something. You have to stop with the…” he gestures to her whole body, “general creepiness, and you have to tell us where your mother is so we can k- tell her off.”

The girl regards him for a moment with seriousness that kids should not possess, before raising her hand.

Stiles’s mind is a continuous chant of _nononono_ as her index finger pointed just over their shoulders.

Stiles looks behind him and meets Derek’s serious gaze, before looking further back.

What he sees...he has no words.

Because there was nothing there.

He turns back to the girl and nearly shrieks. Her mouth is opened wide, wider than physically possible, and her mouth is filled with long, jagged, blood-dripping teeth. She darts for Derek’s leg and clamps on, and Stiles can hear the sickening sound of blood spurting into her mouth before he aims a kick at her.

His foot connects and she screeches as she flies off (he played soccer in middle school), hitting the ground noiselessly. She doesn’t stop there.

“Did she just sink into the floor?” Stiles asks dumbly. He looks at Derek, whose face is tightly drawn in pain, and drops to his knees, his fingers pulling at the fabric of his jeans. “ _Oh my god_ , are you okay?”

He can almost hear Derek roll his eyes. “It’s just my leg, Stiles. It’s already healing.”

Stiles picks the torch up from the ground and shines it on Derek’s leg, but all he sees is mangled and bloody fabric.

The wail comes again, and Stiles stands up slowly, because it’s right behind him.

He whirls around to face it.

“Derek, get the doll.”

Derek’s staring at what Stiles is staring at, and what Stiles is staring at is Derek.

“ _Derek_.”

“ _You_ get the doll,” Derek argues, trying to tug Stiles behind him.

The creature smiles with Derek’s mouth, but says nothing. Everything about it creeps Stiles out.

“ _Fine_ ,” Stiles snaps. He slowly backs away from the creature, and Derek steps in front of him.

Stiles spots the doll, right where Sarah dropped it, and picks it up. It’s warm, warmer than it should be. Stiles almost convinces himself that the chest is moving, like it’s breathing. When he turns it around, it’s another _nope_ moment.

The doll’s eyes are that kind that move around, and they’re focused on Stiles. The smile is wide, and the teeth… are real human canines. The dress is ripped and burnt and torn, and there are dried brown stains that look like blood.

Stiles gets bumped into, and turns around to see Derek backing away from… Derek.

“You’re Derek, right?” he asks him.

“I’m Derek,” the other one insists. The one that bumped into him gives him a scowl.

“ _I’m_ Derek, you dick.”

Stiles stares in dismay at them both, beyond terrified, sufficiently annoyed at the situation. “Seriously? Well, can one of you tell me what to do with the Murder Doll?”

“Now isn’t really a good time,” Derek One mutters around gritted teeth. They’re circling each other now, and both of them look pissed off. It’s impressive; Stiles can’t tell the difference between the two.

Of course, it’s also terrifying.

“Do I have to come up with a riddle or something?” Stiles asks, fiddling with the doll while carefully keeping his fingers away from the mouth. His neck was throbbing, and he was sure that it was only pure fear and adrenaline that held back most of the pain.

“Yes,” Derek Two replies.

“Just get rid of the doll,” Derek One snaps.

There’s a pause.

“How?”

They both growl simultaneously in annoyance, still glaring at each other. There’s so much of _Derek_ in one room that Stiles is tempted to throw the doll down in a tantrum and rip apart the wall to freedom. Obviously, the house wouldn’t let him do it.

“We should go,” Stiles continues, still not entirely sure which Derek he’s meant to be talking to. He tries to find something, a hint of terrible intent, in one of their faces, but he can’t. “Isaac and Scott might know what to do.”

“I’m kind of busy at the moment,” Derek Two growls.

Derek One straightens. “No, you’re right,” he directs at Stiles.

“Stiles, that’s not me.”

Stiles scowls at them both. “How about I leave you both up here, alone?”

Derek One takes a step towards Stiles. “You’ll be killed the moment you get down there.”

Derek Two lets out a warning roar, his eyes bleeding red. “Stay away from him.”

Stiles looks back down at the doll, his eyes catching on the strands of hair that were chopped unevenly, as though hacked with blunt scissors. When he looks up, Derek One is staring at him, his eyes soft and imploring, as the other one places himself in between them. “Stiles, please. It’s _me_. You know me.”

Stiles shakes his head. “No, I really don’t,” he replies hurriedly. “I mean, what cereal do you eat in the morning? I have no idea! I don’t even know what to get you for your birthday!”

“You know me,” Derek One repeats. The other Derek turns to look at Stiles as well, and there’s two Dereks, two pairs of those eyes staring at Stiles as though he were the hopeful answer to a burden of a question. And it made Stiles shudder to think that one pair of those earnest eyes were _wrong_. One of them was the ghost that had murdered countless people, and one of them was Stiles’s Derek, the real Derek.

“Well, one of you is the ghost,” Stiles states. Neither of them even rolls their eyes. “One of you killed your daughter.”

If Stiles expected a reaction, which he did, he doesn’t get one.

“Why?”

Neither of them answers, and they give each other pissed-off looks.

“Because people don’t just kill their kids. You don’t spend nine months with a person in your womb and birth it out just to lock her up and starve her to death.”

Stiles holds up the doll. “Of course, you also tortured her. Stitched her up and beat her. That’s sick. How can a mother do that to her own child?”

The Dereks both look confused now, possibly trying to figure out what Stiles’s angle is. He’s not even sure he has one, he’s just fueling the time the ghost is making to try convince Stiles that it’s the real Derek.

“I think,” Stiles continues, “that you felt guilty. On a few rare occasions, you’d remember that she’s your daughter. That’s why you gave her this, isn’t it?” Stiles clenches his fist, his fingers shaking. “This doll was meant to make up for _years_ of abuse.”

Stiles watches them both carefully. He notices every little twitch, every blink.

“And then she dies.” He swallows around the lump in his throat. “A child is meant to be the better part of yourself. And you killed her.”

Derek One lets out a sob, which turns into a wail, so high that Stiles winces as it pierces his hearing. The second that it breaks character, the real Derek sinks his claws into it’s stomach.

It seems rather anti-climatic at first, but then the creature _doesn’t_ die and it starts clawing back. Derek merely grunts, even as the creature scratches at his chest, and Stiles panics.

He thought if he distracts the fake Derek, the real Derek can kill it, game over, done.

_But how does the doll fit in._

Stiles throws it on the ground as hard as he can, it does nothing. The creature lunges for Derek’s neck and Derek holds him back by an inch. Stiles’s breathing comes faster, catching up with his thoughts.

He can’t smash it, it seems to be as indestructible as the house. Of course, Stiles already had a few theories on the house.

“Do you have a lighter?”

Derek glances over at him. “No! _Get rid of it_.”

“I’m trying!” Stiles snaps.

“Then hurry _up_.”

Stiles spins around, scanning the attic. There’s nothing in it, nothing to light a flame. He was a boy scout, he can light fires, all he needs to make a spark.

He drops to his knees, his nails scrabbling at the rotting floorboards. He tears a nail off, and the sting of it fuels his determination. A few splinters come loose and Stiles sets to work, frantically rubbing them together. It’s not enough, but it doesn’t matter. Stiles is enough.

“ _Ignis salve_ ,” he mutters under his breath. There’s a slight pull at his heart. He isn’t used to drawing magic from himself, but he was good at it. The sticks throw sparks, and the doll catches fire straight away, and a slight smile cuts through Stiles’s fear as he witnesses the dress flame up, the teeth start melting, the eyes roll into the back of the head.

There’s a shriek, and Stiles glances up to see the creature, twisted beyond human capacity, bent backwards in a way that a spine wouldn’t allow. Derek is left kneeling on the ground, hunched over as though he’s winded.

The shriek tapers off into a drawn out wail, and the creature curls into itself. Stiles can hear bones breaking and snapping, and it sounds gruesome, the wet sound of blood spurting from the unnatural position it’s in, the bones piercing the skin. It’s completely unrecognizable as _human_ , let alone Derek, and yet something in Stiles breaks slightly at the sight of what used to be a version of Derek’s body.

“Stiles,” Derek groans. There’s no direction to it, just a statement of Stiles’s name.

The creature crumples to the floor, the last of the wail petering out, and is still. Stiles runs to Derek, leaving the flaming doll behind. His hands reach his shoulders just before Derek begins to fall forward, and he bears the full weight of him.

“Derek? Derek, come on, stay with me,” he mutters.

Derek doesn’t respond, but his head lolls against Stiles’s shoulder. In his silence, Stiles feels completely alone, and it’s scarier. Stiles thought that it would be impossible, but he always felt more courageous in Derek’s company. With Derek’s hand in his.

“ _Derek_ ,” he snaps. He straightens Derek, holding his face up, and slaps it lightly. “Wake up! You’re _not_ leaving me here.”

Derek groans, waving a hand weakly. Stiles slaps him again, and he jerks awake. His eyes are bright on Stiles, his hand grabbing Stiles’s wrist in a painful grip, the same old game.

But, unexpectedly, Derek pulls him forward, wrapping his his arms around Stiles and burying his face into his neck. Stiles, surprised by this turn of events, awkwardly winds his own arms around Derek.

“How did you do that?” Derek asked him. His voice is quiet, and it’s a godsend after the noise from the ghost.

Stiles shrugs, hiding a smile in Derek’s hair. “College is for learning, you know. And experimenting.”

Derek’s quiet for a moment. “We should get Scott and Isaac.”

Stiles snorts softly, stirring Derek’s hair. “They’re probably cuddling in the basement.”

They pull apart, and Stiles helps Derek up, gently avoiding the gashes on his chest, and lets him lean his weight on him.

When they get downstairs, they find a wolfed-out Scott tearing up the door to the basement.

“Scott,” Stiles calls out. Scott turns to look at him with burning yellow eyes. “Try the door handle, bro.”

The sideburns disappear, along with the fangs and the claws, and Scott reaches for the handle. The door opens immediately, whatever keeping it locked being destroyed with Momma Death.

Isaac topples backwards, from leaning on the door, and Scott catches him. After that, Stiles catches a lot of _bro_ s and tears and hugging, which would have made him feel jealous, but for Derek’s weight pressed against him.

The doors crumble into piles of ashes the moment Stiles touches them, the supernatural force of the house failing them. They all stumble outside, taking in deep breaths of cool fresh night air.

Scott lets out a celebratory _whoop_ , and Stiles and Isaac laugh along with him. They’re all giddy with it, with the relief, the freedom, the close shave with death. Stiles and Derek are covered in each other's blood, and Isaac looked like someone had taken a bat to his face. Scott, as usual, looked like he was straight out of an underwear modelling magazine.

Stiles catches Derek’s eyes, which were watching him with an exasperated fondness.

“I’m locking you up, next Halloween,” he murmurs. His face is pale, drawn tight with pain, but he was okay, they were all okay, and alive.

Stiles lunges forward and kisses Derek impulsively, wondering if he would feel braver than he did when he held Derek’s hand. He did. It was something in the warmth of Derek, the gentle feel of him. His lips were softer than Stiles had anticipated, his answering kiss chaste, but sweet. It’s almost enough to make Stiles forget what they had just gone through.

When Stiles draws back, he isn’t bothering with embarrassment, or regret, or apologies. He just survived Murder House, he can blame it on excitement later.

Except, with the small smile Derek gives him, he doesn’t think he has to.

* * *

A young girl watches from the window of the attic, her doll in flames behind her. Her glare is full of hatred. She turns, to the stairs leading out of the attic. They’re rotting, already crumbling. She steps down them. She’s never felt the rush of descent from going _down_.

She’s free to leave the attic.

She’s free to leave the house.

She’s free to wander the town she’s only seen through the dirty, smeared window of her attic.

She's also so very alone. No mother, no Suzy. She'll have to make her own friends.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](desperauxx.tumblr.com.) if you wanna chat. Comments are appreciated :)  
> The Latin phrase "Ignis salve" literally just means "fire hello" because I'm lazy and couldn't be bothered looking up proper incantations.


End file.
